Survivor Fiji: It's A Turtle?

(S14E10) After last week's rather blah episode this week redeems the season with some very interesting last minute machinations. This may be a season with a really good last few weeks because unlike in some other seasons were alliances were set in stone, this crowd tends to be flighty and unsure and neither core team has enough votes without trusting some of the fringe players.

When we start off this week, the quiet leader Earl is dealing with the loss of Michelle and the possibility that Mookie and Dreamz are suspect. One of the best parts of this season is watching Earl strategize. Like Yul, last season he is constantly reassessing and ready to make moves quickly but his alliances are a lot less solid than Yul's ever was.

This week's reward challenge is the popularity contest challenge where people have to guess what the consensus of the tribe was. This challenge also lets people get each other out of the challenge so it is telling that Stacy is the first out, quickly followed by Boo.

Who would you most like to be stranded on a desert island with? The answer is Yau-Man of course! Who smells the worst? It's Dreamz. Who mistakenly believes they are in control of the game? Alex.

Cassandra wins the challenge by guessing every answer right and she sends Mookie to Exile Island which really angers him. She picks Boo, Dreamz and Yau-Man to join her on her yacht adventure. It's all well on the yacht but once they return to the beach, Dreamz is seen as suspect for hanging with Alex and Edgardo but he make it up to Earl and Cassandra by telling them that Mookie has the idol. Earl's incredulous "it's a turtle" act is just one more reason to love this guy.

Mookie, Alex and Edgardo are in a tough spot because they have to confide in Dreamz about their plan to vote out Earl. Yau-Man tells Stacy to vote for anyone but Earl but Alex is pushing her to vote for Earl. Edgardo gets worried and wants to protect Alex with the immunity idol. Mookie isn't itching to use the idol at this point. Earl know that Mookie has given the idol to Alex and so they plan to target him. At the last minute though Edgardo decides they should switch their vote to Cassandra and Earl, et al decide to try for Edgardo. Basically no one knows who to vote for and chaos reigns.

Alex plays the hidden immunity idol. Dumb, dumb move. It's a rather delicious tribal council watching Dreamz and Earl try to cover their smiles. The votes come down to Edgardo and Cassandra and Edgardo gets out. Mookie and Alex are stunned and angry. (ooo, scowly) Interestingly the played idol will be rehidden with new clues on Exile Island. Will this make people send their allies into exile?

In his farewell speech Edgardo takes a swipe at Cassandra. I'm not sure why they dislike her so much.

Next week, Dreamz is on the hot seat and Alex and Mookie have a new plan.I''m giving tonight's episode a 5. It was more satisfying than last week but the challenges weren't too exciting and sometimes I really feel like Jeff is just phoning in tribal council at this point.

This episode only merited a "5" on TVSquad's goofy ratings system? (it's goofy not because it's only to 7 - it's goofy because it's totally lowball weighted - the only "good" numbers are 6 and 7).

This was definitely the best episode of this season, and truly one of the best tribal councils ever. I was saying to my g/f "there's going to be four surprised people at tribal, but all surprised for slightly different things".

- Mookie - shocked Alex didn't even get a vote.- Alex - shocked that he's not voted, and that Casandra isn't leaving- Edguardo - leaving - oops.- Idiot Dreamz - for not knowing the vote was for Edguardo.

I have to say, seeing the promo for next week was really disapointing - they find Yauman's idol!!!??? WTF? I give Yau much more credit normally! You'd think he'd hide the bejesus out of that thing.

I love the expressions on everyone's face at the tribal council before the votes are read. Alex, Edguardo and Mookie think they're being so very clever playing the idol, whilst the others all know what's REALLY going on. Hilarious.

I thought the same thing at first David. Why vote Edgardo out when you can string Dreamz along for another couple of weeks? Then I realized, that they really couldn't trust him. He kept mentioning Mookie and Alex as passing the Idol among them, yet never mentioned Edgardo as even thinking he was threatened. Brilliant move on Earls part on having his team go for the one horseman that thought he was safest.

He couldn't risk telling Dreamz and for good reason. Dreamz couldn't keep the turtle a secret and quite frankly, they really didn't need him once they got Stacey aboard.

Not only the best episodes of the season, one of the best episodes of Survivor ever (imo). With Alex & Mookie discovering the other idol, what "new plan" can they possibly hatch to turn that to their advantage? They don't have the numbers unless they can pull Boo and Stacy back in.

I'm curious, with the idol being re-hidden, if Yau-Man's fake idol is going to come into play. It looks ridiculous, but maybe people will think the idol has changed looks to throw people off. Or maybe not, but I find it weird that they'd show him making and hiding it early on, and yet not have it come into play at all.

I too am wondering if they have just decided that they don't really need dreamz (gosh I hate writing that). Earl really appears to be the ruling master of this game, it was pure genius to get dreamz to betray everyone, test his loyalty (see if he was going to vote for mookie ), and get the enemy's immunity idol out of the game. If dreamz had been double dealing with them, mookie would have had the idol back and they would have exposed mookie and still gotten the numbers. I wonder, however, if editing is taking something away from yao man. I wouldn't be surprised if he is behind a lot of the scheming that goes on. I also think that alex and those guys made a mistake going for cassandra, there was no way dreamz was going to be ok with that. If they had targeted stacy I think they might have had a better chance keeping dreamz.

A terribly boring first half of the season has finally revealed a great ending!